The Half Empty Glass

When Paul Barnett was a guest on The No Prisoners, No Mercy show spoke about members of the mmo community who are wont to toll the death knell for mmo games…

I TOLD YOU THE SUN WOULD FINALLY EXPLODE!!! – Paul Barnett on The No Prisoners, No Mercy Show

Like so many retroactive Elijah’s they look back on the many self fulfilling prophecies around the blogosphere and say “We told you so!!” Usually articles and posts of this type can be summed up by saying “go play the game - it’s fun but it will go downhill fast”. Already we have seen examples (http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2011/12/28/why-swtor-wont-be-the-success-everyone-hopes/). We have seen complaints that the game doesn’t have enough “replayability” and complaints that Star Wars the Old Republic has “too much content” as well; both can’t be true. The question you all need to ask yourself at this point is the following:

HOW FAST CAN YOU PLAY THROUGH 400 LEVELS?

Star Wars the Old Republic has a separate story arch for each class and there are eight classes and fifty levels. Claims of the game only having “a single line of progression” for each side simply isn’t true. Anyone who believes this should play through the game. What you will find is that this statement is simply false. Each set of class quests has its own story, even when the quests are set in the same area as another class. This is why reading “cutscenes and voice acting are all great for about one play through per faction” have us scratching our heads trying to figure out the source of the claims. Our own Sister Julie has played through five classes over both factions and the game has yet to be the same.

And what happens once “the shine of the story mode wears off” we wonder. If you are a Star Wars fan (and why else would you play the game if you aren’t?) you are left with the music, sound effects and game mechanics that all combine to make the player feel as if they are in the movie.

In the end, it always puzzles us why such a large sector of the mmo community begins to complain about a game before the mmo even hits the virtual shelves with predictions of doom, gloom and pointing out where the game fell short. (yes we will admit we have given in to that urge a time or two ourselves).

Even more astounding is after all the time players have spent bitching and complaining about wanting new innovations in the mmo industry, once they get it they still complain. Did Bioware bring those same interactive game mechanics they used in the Mass Effect games to Star Wars The Old Republic?

One of the big problems for me with SWTOR was that (picky gamer that I am) I wanted to decouple gameplay from storyline, and also that I didn’t like all of the storylines. Obviously if you are a person who doesn’t have a strong preference for your tools of destruction (my husband happily plays through ME and The Elder Scrolls games as every class style under the sun), this is a boon for you, but I will never like playing a stealthy stabby gunslingery type, so smuggler and agent were right out for me before day 1. I’ve seen other bloggers talk about how they really enjoy, say, tanking, in their other MMOs – which makes me feel I am not so alone – so I will be curious to see how many of the 8 storylines everyone pursues as the months pass.

Then again, I found I didn’t care for the bounty hunter story, either, and, well, the whole thing kind of fell down for me and my Bioware ennui. But, as I said on my own blog – I’m clearly not the target audience, so what do I know?

Sr. Julie

December 30, 2011 | 6:21 am

To be sure there is quite a range story lines in SWTOR. Even with the story lines there are choices you make can have quite different outcomes – often the dark side answer isn’t just a little dark it is VERY dark.

As for me I played five of the classes through their entire prologue just to get a feel for the game before I selected one to take higher. Fran, however, selected one class and stuck with it.